Silver Lining
by Girl in a White Dress
Summary: A collection of miscellaneous drabbles.
1. Silver Lining

Title: Silver Lining  
Rating: G  
Character: Irina  
Summary: She has always hated flying.  
Response to LJ alias100 challenge 62 _jet lag_.

* * *

She has always hated flying. It's not that she's afraid – she fears very little in this life, and certainly not death. 

It's the boredom, she thinks. There's not much to keep her occupied. Worse, she's stuck on this plane for another seven hours. She supposes she should be grateful she rarely suffers from jet lag.

Unfortunately, her husband does, and he was in a bad mood before they even boarded the plane.

Her daughter peers out of the window, excitedly announcing"Look at the clouds, Mom!"

Irina thinks being Laura Bristow isn't so bad. Even if she has to fly.


	2. Love Me

Title: Love Me  
Rating: PG  
Disclaimer: Not my characters.  
Character: Sydney  
For challenge 64 _be mine_.

* * *

Sydney Bristow, age six, enamoured with Billy Thompson who sits next to her. He pulls her pigtails. She punches him.

Age fourteen. Sydney dreams about Doug Graham, captain of the swim team. He asks blonde, blue-eyed Tiffany Kelly to the Valentine's Ball. Never one to cry over a boy, Sydney takes out her frustration on a punching bag.

Fast forward to Danny, who loves Sydney with his whole heart. Loves her so much that he gives her an engagement ring. Sydney says YES! Wants to say more, wants to tell him the truth.

She ends up saying his eulogy instead.


	3. Living Dead

Title: Living Dead  
Disclaimer: Not my characters.  
Rating: PG  
For challenge #66 _numb_.

* * *

Laura Bristow is dead. Irina feels nothing.

She stares at the wedding ring in her hand, remembers how strange it felt to wear it at first. Now she'll have to get used to not wearing it.

She remembers Sydney begging to try it on, the excitement in her voice as she exclaimed, "I can't wait till I get married, Mommy!"

A tear escapes her eyes, trails down her cheek. She wipes it away. There is no place for tears in her life.

She hears Sydney's carefree laughter, and wishes she felt numb.

(Welcome to the land of the living dead.)


	4. Empty

Title: Empty  
Disclaimer: Not my characters.  
For challenge #66 _numb_.

* * *

Sydney sits at the dinner table. Her food has long since grown cold, and even though it's her favorite, she hasn't even touched it. (Leftover macaroni cheese – Mom's special recipe. Laura let Sydney help her make it, and said Sydney was the best assistant she'd ever had.)

She pushes her plate away and looks at her mother's empty seat. Tears fill her eyes and spill down her cheeks. It can't be true. Her mother isn't dead. Any second now, she'll walk through the door and scold Sydney for not eating.

Except it's her father who enters, and he's crying too.


	5. Kismet

Title: Kismet  
Disclaimer: Not my characters.  
A/N: For challenge #67. A very loose interpretation of _fallen_ :o)

She slips quietly out of the bed and studies her lover's profile in the moonlight. She's not entirely sure why she did this. Emily is her friend and the last thing she wants is to hurt her. Besides, she's not in love with Arvin.

She does love Jack, even though she wasn't supposed to fall for him. (But, she thinks, how could she help it?) Yet she seems destined to hurt him.

Irina sighs and slowly begins to dress. When she leaves the hotel, she finds a payphone and dials a familiar number.

It's time for Laura Bristow to die.


	6. LJ prompts

For: **yahtzee  
**Prompt: Jack/Irina. The glass cage. Red.  
Word count: 100

They stare at each other through the glass. Jack knows she's real, knows she's alive and warm and breathing, but all he can see is Laura waving as she got into the car that awful day.

He remembers holding her waterlogged red scarf as he watched them pull the car from the river, remembers the cold seeping into his fingers and thinking he'd never be warm again.

And he hates that now, even knowing the truth, he feels more alive than he has since he lost her.

She still smiles as if she knows all his secrets.

Maybe she does.

* * *

For: **raptor47  
**Prompt: Jack/Irina. Panama. Indigo.  
Word count: 100

The night sky is more indigo than black, and Irina looks at the stars while Jack sleeps. She has always known she would see him again, and she hopes one day he'll understand that he is not the one she is betraying this time.

She hasn't told him anything; he'll never believe her, and leaving him this time is harder than the first.

_I love you_, she thinks. But her love is poison and that is why she will never say the words aloud.

Irina tells herself she has no regrets, but tonight it is difficult to believe the lie.


	7. Chapter 7

For yahtzee, and the prompt: Jack/Irina and the winter of our discontent.

* * *

There is too much silence between them these days. Before, when she was Laura and he was whole, there was never this silence. Their anger then had been full of fire. Passion. Love.

Now, his anger is colder, more difficult to break. Icy.

She is still fire, her eyes burning into his, trying to melt his heart again.

Slowly, the thaw comes. There is still a glass wall between them and he is glad for the barrier, afraid that in the same room he would not stop himself from touching her.

And yet, in his dreams her kiss is warm.


	8. Chapter 8

_Standalone drabbles. Originally posted on LJ._

She's in his bed when he arrives home from APO one night and for a moment all he can do is stare. He'd let her go in Sevogda, let her walk away with the certainty that he would never see her again. The sweetness of that last kiss keeps him awake at nights as he wonders and regrets all the could-have-beens.

Yet here she is.

He crawls into bed beside her and she stirs slightly as the mattress shifts under his weight.

"Hi," she says, then curls into him.

For the first time in months, Jack's sleep is dreamless.

* * *

_So take these words & sing out loud, cause everyone is forgiven now, cause tonight's the night the world begins again._ (Goo Goo Dolls: Better Days)

"I should have known you weren't going to let me walk away," she says when he catches up to her in the ruins of the city.

"If I let you go, I might never see you again." He smiles. "That's a risk I'm not willing to take."

There's an eerie stillness that surrounds them; they might as well be the only two people in the world. And even that no longer matters when he slides his arms around her waist and kisses her the way he's wanted to – the way she's wanted him to – since she walked out of the jungle.

Side by side, they leave the ruins behind and head toward the sunrise.

* * *

_You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life._ (ABBA: Dancing Queen)

"I can't dance." There's a panicked expression in his eyes, but she takes his hand and leads him onto the dance floor anyway. "Laura, really, I—"

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she presses herself against him and slowly begins to move. "Just go with it, Jack."

He hesitates for the briefest second, then slides his arms around her waist. He's still far too tense, so she slips her hand between their bodies and lightly squeezes his balls.

"Laura!"

"Shh, Jack. Just dance with me."

He mumbles something unintelligible into her neck, and she smiles. Then he reaches down and grabs her ass, and she thinks Jack Bristow is a lot more fun than she was led to believe.

* * *

_You'll follow me back with the sun in your eyes, and on your own, bedshaped, legs of stone_. (Keane: Bedshaped)

The sun paints the sky as a backdrop of red and orange as it slowly sinks lower on the horizon. She's on fire, a goddess untouched by the flames of colour. A phoenix, perhaps, he thinks. Risen from the ashes once again.

He cannot move, though he suspects she's here to kill him. It's somehow fitting that she'll be the one to end his life. He thinks maybe he's always known it would happen this way.

Except it's Arvin she empties her weapon into, then unlocks Jack's handcuffs and offers him a smile that says, _really, you should have known better_.

* * *

_Stay with him if you can, but be prepared to bleed._ (Joni Mitchell: A Case of You)

Irina contacts Katya shortly after her extraction in Panama. There's something different about her, Katya thinks, and studies her even more carefully. Her younger sister has never been open with her feelings, but Katya recognizes something that has been absent in Irina for almost two decades.

She frowns. "I thought this harebrained scheme of yours wasn't about Jack."

Irina merely raises an eyebrow in question.

"He broke you the first time," Katya says. "And you've never learned how to guard your heart when it comes to him—"

"Katya." Irina's tone carries a warning.

"If he hurts you again, I'll kill him."

Irina narrows her eyes. "Jack is never to be touched."

* * *

_I'll be bonnie, and you'll be clyde/and we'll try to get ourselves killed, before we die_. (Bonnie & Clyde)

There was a time he thought he would never laugh again – how could he find anything to be happy about in a world without Sydney?

Except now he's with Irina and he's laughing, and it no longer matters that he's on the wrong side of the law and there's a price on both their heads, because she's laughing with him. He has always loved the sound of her laughter.

Because Sydney's not dead, and they're so close to finding her. Maybe one of these days they can even be a family again.

Happiness, he's discovered, is just within his reach.

* * *

He can't take his eyes off her. She's dirty and bruised but she's alive, and that's the only thing that matters. Irina is alive, and while he doesn't dare hope for reconciliation, perhaps Sydney can finally forgive him for that night in Vienna.

He notices Irina's looking at him now, and instead of the hate he expects to see in her eyes, there's pain, but something else too.

(A thousand years ago she said she loved him.)

Her lips curve in an almost-invisible smile and Jack wonders if he can hope after all.

(And he said he loved her too.)

* * *

You dream.

Kashmir. A dark cell. Unfamiliar hands grabbing at you, pulling at your clothes, your hair. Your feet are burning, you're screaming, and the voices keep asking their questions.

(And you wish you were Laura because then you'd be dead.)

Jack. You're dancing. He holds you close, kisses you, his hands skimming across your back (and maybe this will be a good dream) but then he steps away.

"How could you?" he asks.

You want to tell him he's wrong, it's a trap, but he pulls out his gun and shoots you.

When you wake up, you're still in a cell, and your sister smiles at you.

* * *

Katya watches her youngest sister sleep; frowning as Irina restlessly tosses and turns on the narrow cot, the sheets twisting around her. When they were children, Irina slept like the dead. These days, she wakes at the slightest sound – assuming she manages to fall asleep at all.

In the ten years Irina lived in America, Katya thought about her every day. Even now, she wonders how her sister managed to stay sane for all that time. Katya knows she does not have the patience for that kind of assignment.

Still, she reflects, Irina has not come away unchanged. There's an emptiness in her now, and Katya will never admit it, but she's afraid for her sister.

* * *

Every Valentine's Day, before her mother left, Sydney would receive a rose and candy from her father. She felt so special, felt that she was the most important person in her dad's life. (She didn't realize her parents exchanged gifts behind closed doors, once she was safely tucked into bed.)

In high school, she and Francie declared that Valentine's Day was a government conspiracy to swindle people.

Later, Danny treated her like a princess, and she felt like the most important person in his life.

Now, a lifetime later, Vaughn gives Isabelle a rose, and he and Sydney exchange their gifts behind closed doors.

* * *

They meet when they can: fleeting moments together, stolen kisses and whispered words, hotel rooms in foreign countries. It is not the most ideal marriage in the world, but he can't imagine losing her again, and she can't bear to leave him again.

They don't say "I love you", because those words belong to two people long dead; a young couple who thought themselves invincible.

One night he returns home and she's in his kitchen, cooking, wearing nothing but one of his shirts. She smiles at him. Dinner can wait.

(He doesn't see Laura anymore when he looks at her.)

* * *

His fingers skim her belly before he presses his lips to her skin. There's a tone of reverence in his voice when he finally speaks. "We made a baby."

She nods, not trusting herself to talk.

"Our little girl is growing inside there, right now." He kisses her again.

"You don't know we're having a girl."

"Of course I do. She's going to be just as beautiful as her mom." His breath tickles her stomach. "Hi, sweetheart. I'm your daddy."

"Jack—"

"Shh. I've only known you for five minutes," he says to her belly, "but want to tell you I love you."

Irina's smile softens when he adds, "Thank you, Laura."

* * *

Before Irina left (the first time) the Bristows had a cat. It was killed by a car when Sydney was nine; Jack lied and said it had run away, and eventually Sydney stopped asking for another one.

He doesn't think of this cat as his. He feeds it, and leaves out a saucer of milk, but the cat comes and goes as it pleases.

It reminds him of Irina, he thinks wryly. The first time, the cat stared at him appraisingly through the window and he was reminded of a similar stare from a woman in a glass cage.

* * *

He stares down at the body of the woman who should have been his daughter, willing her to draw breath. She is a Derevko, and Derevkos do not die. How many times has Irina come back from the dead? Sydney, too, has cheated death.

_Wake up, Nadia_.

No. Derevkos are mortal too. Elena is dead. Nadia is gone.

The worst part is going to be telling Irina - again - that she has lost a child.

In Nadia's death, he sees Irina's, Sydney's -- Isabelle's. He cannot accept that.

He crouches, and carefully closes Nadia's eyes.

(He will believe his loves are immortal.)

* * *

After Kashmir, Elena sends her to the monastery to heal. ("No one will look for you here, Ira. Stay as long as you need.")

It's there that she learns about Rambaldi and prophecies, and she drinks in all that Conrad tells her, eager to fill the hole in her life with a purpose and a vision. ("You are his chosen one, Irina.")

Years later, she realises this was another of Elena's manipulations, that the so-called enlightenment is not worth its cost, and that she has become just another of Rambaldi's tools.

She puts a bullet in her sister's skull.

* * *

It's a week before the detective tells him Laura's body is missing. "She wasn't in the car."

Jack stares blankly at the man.

"Uh, we think she managed to get out the vehicle -- maybe she thought she could swim to safety. I'm sorry, Mr. Bristow. The current is strong. I'm afraid there's almost no chance of recovering her body."

"What if she made it out of the river?"

The detective's voice is laced with sympathy. "We've checked all the hospitals in the area. I'm sorry."

Laura's photograph slips from Jack's hands, the glass shattering as it hits the floor.

* * *

"I'm sorry," he says, and she blinks back tears. There is no time to be weak, not now, not yet.

Except--

_Nadia_.

She reaches for Jack, hating the way her hands shake. He pulls her to him; he knows what she's feeling, she thinks. They've been through this before.

"I wasted so much time with her," she whispers against Jack's skin, later. "But I loved her. I always loved her."

And Jack begins to speak, telling her about the girl who he mourns as if she was his, and, finally, Irina cries.

_Nadezhda, my baby, I'm sorry._


	9. Chapter 9

_For princess_rco who asked for midnight._

. . .

She cannot sleep.

She has not slept for three days. The guards did their jobs too well in Kashmir she has been home for a month and the last time she slept, it was for an hour.

Katya is worried about her, though she has yet to say anything. Irina doesn't care; she stopped caring about anything a long time ago.

If she doesn't care, then no one can get hurt. If she doesn't love, her heart can't be broken.

And if she cannot sleep, she cannot dream.

(These are the lies she tells herself in the dead of night.)


	10. Chapter 10

_For Amanda who asked for Irina and Christmas carols._

. . .

She sings "We Three Kings" and "Away in a Manger" and Sydney joins in, slightly off-key, when she can remember the words. They're decorating a tree, something Laura had never done in her life as Irina. A ridiculous custom, she had thought; but this year she actually looked forward to it.

When Jack gets home from work he will lift Sydney onto his shoulders so she can put the angel on top of the tree.

"Sing something else," Sydney says, tinsel in her hair.

A ridiculous custom, perhaps, but one Irina will miss one day when she has to leave.


	11. Chapter 11

_**F**or antiqueskies who asked for pre-show Sydney/Jack and "Sometimes he can't bear to look at her."_

. . .

Sometimes he can't bear to look at her. Not because of her striking resemblance to Laura; his emotions are still too conflicted for him to resent the reminder of his dead wife.

It is guilt that causes the ever-growing distance between him and Sydney. Laura's death and his imprisonment have changed his little girl so completely that there are days he doesn't recognize her.

She is so quiet now. She smiles less and her eyes are filled with a sadness and pain that he doesn't know how to fix.

He still loves her more than anything else in the world.


End file.
